as if you have a choice
by bluestoplights
Summary: She doesn't lie on the couch, stroking his ring between her fingers like she did the last time.
**A/N: There's an 100% chance I wrote this crying and listening to snow patrol on repeat. See you all in hell. Not literally, because they left. I'M NOT OKAY, CLEARLY. I HOPE THIS HELPS YOU.**

 **-/-**

She doesn't lie on the couch, stroking his ring between her fingers like she did the last time.

Emma has to hold herself together. She has to function, has to take Henry to school, has to babysit for her little brother, has to be the sheriff, has to water the stupid plants their (her, now) home has for whatever goddamn reason. It's as if Dark Emma had decided that the key to domesticity is house plants. She has to take care of them now, anyway. It's another duty to add to the list.

Emma cries when the plants die (overwatering is deadly, as it turns out) because they're just another reminder of the things she can't keep alive.

When Henry walks in when she's wiping her tears away, staring at a wilting pot of orchids, she just smiles and asks what he wants for dinner.

(He doesn't comment on how red her eyes are. She's at least grateful for that.)

Killian would have kept them alive, she's sure. Maybe he learned gardening in the Royal Navy right along with Greek. She'll never get the chance to ask him.

-/-

Hades is defeated - in a manner of speaking - shunned back to the Underworld by Zelena and Regina and her own shaky, far from dependable attempts at magic. It's all a blur, between the funeral (he would have rather been buried at sea, she knows, but she's selfish and she at least needs his grave close and Maine has laws about burial at sea so floating dead bodies don't scare off sailors and swimmers) and everything else. She doesn't know what the hell the Mills sisters did with the god of the Underworld, at the end of the day, and isn't even sure she wants to.

-/-

She's going grocery shopping with Henry, her latest struggle at being Normal and Balanced and Not a General Grieving Mess. Emma has lost enough people, she should be used to it by now. She's lost him four times, now, but who's really counting?

(She is.)

Without the armor - the metaphorical armor, she still wears her leather - it's that much harder. But she promised Killian she'd keep it off, just for him, and she figures she at least owes him this.

They're perusing fruit - she has got to at least take care of her body better at the very least, she's always had a terrible diet - when her hands find a pomegranate. It's red and ripe and not the type of thing she normally pays a passing glance, but she picks it up and turns it over in her hand. Persephone - who evidently didn't really exist - was able to tie herself to the Underworld by eating its seeds in the old legend. Henry told her that story.

It's like an inverse of ambrosia.

Emma clenches it so tightly the juice of it spills into her hands and the seeds fall on the linoleum floor. A nearby clerk sends her a dirty look. Henry comes up, just then, a bunch of grapes in his hands.

Emma bites her lip, trying to keep sobs from spilling.

(She cleans the mess she's made up, hastily, and excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Emma sits down in a stall and sobs, letting the tremors take over her body as her hand closes over her mouth. When she goes to clean herself up in the mirror, the smear of juice looks like blood. She's a mess, is what she is.)

-/-

They host a party at Granny's, because this is what her family does. For some reason, Hades is back here from the Underworld showing off on Zelena's arm. She doesn't know the circumstances, not really, she's been nodding and 'uh-huh'ing to conversations for weeks now. All she knows is that he's being kept in check after coming back here earlier today, his magic not having the same pull here as it did in the Underworld. And True Love, rare and precious thing that it is (this she says internally and sarcastically to herself as she watches the god of the Underworld and Neal's murderer smush noses while Regina looks vaguely approving) saved him once and for all.

She had that, with Killian, the whole True Love thing. And not even ten minutes after she found out, she had to let him go.

(Once with her fingers trying to clasp onto him as he was rolled out on a gurney, the other when he tried, desperately, to try to reach for her until his fingers were unable to meet hers. She doesn't take elevators, anymore.)

Emma just sits in a booth like she's supposed to, sipping on something that isn't rum. When she has her fill of the festivities - supposedly celebrating Robin's good health or their return or whatever this is supposed to be - she stands up to leave. She grabs her jacket, draping it back over herself.

Keeping armor off is a lot harder than it sounds. Killian isn't around to be disappointed, anyway.

"Emma!" Zelena cries, right as she has a foot out the door. "Don't go! We still have so much to celebrate."

Her face hardens. "Like what, exactly?"

She has to think, for a moment, the redhead scrambling for the right words. "Why, Hades and I making up of course!"

She _would_ be delusional enough to be this tone deaf.

"Fantastic," Emma deadpans,"I'm ecstatic for you."

Emma is surprised when her parents stop her, too, gentle hands on her arm right as she opens the door.

"That's not the reason we want you to stay. We have a surprise for you, Emma," Snow says, her voice cautious. "We were...Hercules and Megara know a lot about the Underworld, as it turns out, and Zelena's new beau may be…"

"An asshole," David says, bluntly, "but he sucked it up and helped us."

Emma is only half listening, rocking back and forth on her heels distractedly. She has to get home, has to finish paperwork from the station, has to do laundry, has to do dishes. She has to keep this routine up, has to do things or else she may forget how to function entirely. "Good to know. I should really be going, you guys."

"Emma…" Snow protests as she starts to walk away, one foot in front of the other, but David holds up his arm to keep her back.

"Give her a minute," Emma hears him instruct her, voice soft. "Just give her a little while."

Emma keeps walking until she reaches the table in front of Granny's where she and Killian kissed, right after they got back from their time traveling adventure.

( _"You gave up for ship for me,"_ she had said, wondrously and hopefully and she wants to tell that Emma to shed her armor sooner, to cling to him tighter and maybe this wouldn't have happened. If she could turn back time, find another time portal, she would. But she can't. Because she has to be good and selfless and -

This is still so _hard_.)

Emma sets her hands on the back of the chair he sat in, bowing her head and steeling herself. The tears are right at bay, ready to go if she decides to let go and maybe even without her permission. She can't let it. Emma squeezes her eyes shut, taking deep, heaving breaths.

"Swan?"

Amazing, she's progressed to delusions. Her parents are sure to call Archie on her, now, sic her in therapy for the foreseeable future. Emma ignores the voice in her head, no matter how much it sounds like him. Emma lets a few tears fall.

She feels a hand on her back and flinches. It must be her father. "What do you want?" she tries, but the words come out shaky and rough.

"Emma, love, it's me."

Emma turns around, in a haze, and it _is_ him. Killian is wearing that leather jacket, the pirate's luck, and his grin is tenuous and his eyes are wet. She shuts her eyes again, shaking his head. " _No, no, no_ \- this is a trick."

"No," he protests, hand coming up to cup her cheek and force her to meet his eyes. They're still just as blue, his hand just as calloused. "I promise you, my love, this is real. I'm right here. The girl I helped - Megara - she and her hero helped me find the ambrosia I needed to come back to you."

"But," Emma protests, hand going to her heart.

He shakes his head, his grin widening. "I only have a few minutes to ask you to share, the ambrosia's effects are just enough to revive my body, but I hope you're willing."

She gapes at him, unable to do much else. Emma hands go all over him, skimming over his arms and chest and the beard on his chin just to know that he's here, he's real, she has him _here._

Emma is able to take her own heart out of her chest, as it turns out, and it splits and falls into his chest easily enough. He embraces her just as soon as she collapses, sobbing into his shoulder as her arms wrap around him. "Killian," she manages, repeating his name over and over again like a hymn. Her fingers fist into his hair and his arms are tight around her. "Killian, Killian, Killian."

"Aye, love," he replies, his voice cracking. "It's me. I'm here. I've got you, darling, I won't leave you again."

"I missed you so much," Emma murmurs, sniffling. "I did, I thought about you every day. Every hour, I tried to let you go, I swear I did, but I couldn't. I tried leaving my armor off, I tried, but I - I can't do this without you. I need you here."

"You have me," he presses a kiss into her hair. "For as long as you want me. I love you, Emma."

"I love you so much," she echoes, leaning back to look at him. It's hard, making anything out of him through the tears, but his hand comes up to wipe them away. "I love you, Killian."

"I know," he responds, a shaky laugh spilling out of his lips as he kisses her, lifting her up in the process. Emma clings to him, kissing him back just as passionately, and lets her feet come off the ground.

When they come back down, he's right there to steady her.

She manages a joke, much to her own surprise. "We're not doing this five times, you hear me? Four is enough."

He laughs against her lips as his head dips down to kiss her again.


End file.
